Vicinally disubstituted olefin monomers are abundant products and/or by-products of petrochemical processes. However, their current commercial use has generally been limited to isomerization or polymers using the isomers. Commercial manufacture of high polymers (generally those above 10,000 in number average molecular weight) comprising ethylene and/or one or more α-olefins and one or more vicinally disubstituted olefins has, heretofore, not been known.
Insertion, or coordination polymerization is a known chemical reaction sequence for preparing polymers and copolymers of ethylene, α-olefins, non-conjugated diolefins and/or strained ring cyclic olefins. Traditional Ziegler monomers, e.g., ethylene and α-olefins, such as propylene, 1-butene, 1-hexene, and 1-octene, are readily polymerized in the presence of Group 4 transition metals having as ligands one η-5 bound cyclopentadienyl ligand and three α-bound monoanionic ligands, alternatively where one of the monoanionic ligands comprises a heteroatom that may be covalently bound both to the Group 4 metal center and, through a bridging group, to a ring carbon atom of the cyclopentadienyl ligand group.
In view of the above, additional means of manufacturing polyolefins, particularly a means of incorporating vicinally disubstituted olefins in such polyolefins may be desirable. Copolymer compositions comprising ethylene and/or α-olefins and at least one vicinally disubstituted olefin, optionally with other polymerizable olefinically-unsaturated monomers, may provide new compositions useful in many applications.